Cure your piles yourself without surgery!

Piles! Hemorrhoids!

These are two hated words that bring great embarrassment!
No need to fear though. You can get rid of yours WITHOUT surgery!

Many years ago when I was in my late twenties I went to the doctor about an unusual discomfort I was feeling when I sat down!
To my horror, his diagnosis was that I had piles and needed surgery to remove them. I still remember the discomfort and embarrassment I felt as I went through the procedure. Going to the toilet was a problem and the stuff they made me drink to keep me regular and soft was disgusting.

I vowed never to do it again!

I was even prepared to live with them if I ever got them again. I was not going to be operated on!
Well, it is now about 20 to 25 years later and I have had piles again - about 3 times! - but I am not still living with them because I have found a fantastic way of getting rid of them. I have supplied a couple of other people who I know of with the same remedy and they have all experienced the pleasure of their piles going away WITHOUT SURGERY!
The process is natural and painless!
It is fantastic to know that there are many ways in which common ailments can be rectified and many problems with health can be treated by yourself if you are patient and take the time to know what you need to do.
Piles come in various forms. From the simple internal or external ones that cause little or no discomfort to the big bleeding ones; all can be cured and healed with the natural remedies I use.
Biochemical Tissue Salts for the basis of the Remedy with Calc Flour and Ferum Phos forming the basis of it.

Calc Flour restores tissue elasticity. Piles occur when the tissues around the blood vessels have lost their elasticity.

Ferum Phos is a great healing agent that reduces swelling and inflammation. It also strengthens the quality of blood.
Take the tissues salts by alternating between them half hourly at first until the healing is complete then stay on a maintenance dosage of three times a day for a month or two after.

The process can be improved by taking other natural remedies that help maintain good circulation. A good candidate in this area is Red Pepper powder or Cayenne Pepper. Take a half a teaspoon three times a day in a little liquid. - It will burn at first but it is worth a little discomfort for the benefit it gives!
I trust that you will find this as helpful to you as I did.
Be Patient - it Works.
Ken.
PS: Please note that I am not a Doctor but feel the need to share my experiences with you. The remedies are natural and harmless and in my opinion, the preferred way in which to treat yourself.

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Cats

IF you are anything like me, you will love cats!  I am very much drawn to cats and I am so lucky because our neighbourhood has lots of cats...

• skinny cats
• furry cats
• fat cats
• cute cats
• big cats
• small cats
• beautiful cats
• ugly cats
• white, black and tabby cats
• grey cats and ginger cats
• cats of every shape and size

The picture above is my daughter's cat.  Kameko is a Seal point Tortoise Siamese cat with a pedigree more distinguished than the British Royal Family but a nature and disposition as haughty and demanding as a monarch.
This cat is 11 years old and has used up all 9 of her lives and still continues to live.  She is anorexic and frequently goes on hunger strikes and then expects us to shower her with love, affection and pampering.

Her diet used to consist of a bird a day.  If there was a bird on the ground, she would catch it.  This hobby stopped one day when she was run over repeatedly by some perverse driver.  With a few lives expended, Kameeko had a will to live and after considerable expense and a few months at the local vet she once again was at home and up to her feline demands.  The cat's agility and mobility had been compromised and she was not quick enough for most birds so she had to resort to dry food.

I tolerate Kameeko.  As a cat she is not one that impresses me much!

Lightning - a few chapters on.

Lightning by Dean Koontz is being a very enjoyable book.  I don't get much time to read it but the time I get is well spent and rewarding.  The characters have become understandable and the plot is getting deeper.  Poor little Laura Shane.  She has lost so much and yet is handling everything so well.  Her experiences are still punctuated by Lightning and inclement weather.




She has spent the last few years as an orphan with an unknown and mysterious guardian angel intervening on her behalf at times yet in the one incident that was crucial for him being there, he was absent yet Miss Shane survived!

The evil force that is a threat to her has been out of the story for a while and I wonder what deep dark deed he is contemplating.

As with all the Dean Koontz novels I have read, Lightning is being just as unpredictable and equally gripping.

Hamsters and the big wheel

Hamsters are little rodents that humans think are cute so they pop them in a wire cage with a big wheel in it so that they can entertain their owners with hours upon hours of running to the end of the never ending wheel.



Poor hamster.  Nothing better to do in life than to look at these huge faces peering at them through the wires of the cage. 
They twitch their noses endlessly and it brings smiles and giggles from the spectators. 
They turn around and climb on the treadmill and it brings laughs and comments from their captors.



Food gets thrown in the cage.  They run to it and grasp in in their tiny little hands and nibble voraciously at these tasty treats.

What is the purpose of life for them?
I often wonder if our lives are not in many ways similar to theirs.  Of course, our cages are much bigger but we have a 9-5 schedules that we follow each day and although we are not running endlessly on a treadmill, many of the activities we indulge in - and sometimes have to do - are about as pointless as the poor hamster's.

Philosophers and scientists have argued the purpose of life.  Religious leaders have their opinions that, to them, are supported by scripture but there are relatively few people in the world that can really say with full conviction that they KNOW what the purpose of THEIR LIFE is.



The purpose of life is something that I have considered and pondered many times in my life.  As a child it was not so important but as I grew older and started shouldering more and more responsibilities it became evident that there was a purpose that was far more than just myself and that I played but a small part in it.

Through diligent study, meditation and prayer I was able to come to realise what my purpose in life is.
Youtube has this interesting clip to watch - click here

Trapped by safety

As a child I had very limited exposure to crime. I guess those were the days that children were seen and not hurt.  Crime was an adult topic of conversation and I can't remember my parents ever really discussing it.

When I cast my mind back I can remember one instance that occurred when I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old.  We were staying in a large house in Yeoville - a suburb of Johannesburg.  The house was on the corner of two roads and there was a wall around most of the street sides of the property.  They were not high walls - most likely only about 2 or 3 feet high.

My mother had left her handbag on a chair or a table that was close to the main entrance to the house - the front door.  The door was open and we were all in various parts of the house.  Someone came through the gate, onto the property, up the path onto the veranda and entered the door, stole the handbag and left.  I only heard about it years later.



When I was 11 my sister had a birthday party - she was 12 - and it included loud music and lots of her friends.  Some bikers tried to gatecrash the party and my father had to call the police.  This was the height of excitement for me but by today's standards it was very tame!

The next incident I remember as after we had been living in Natal for some time. I can't recall how old I was but my father had a small transistor radio which was always in the lounge. When we had been out one day, someone broke into the house through a window in the lounge and stole the radio. The police reacted quickly to that and a few days later had caught the perpetrator who subsequently was tried and sent to prison.

We had no burglar bars on our house in those days. No alarms. No infrared sensors and no tall walls or fences with razor wire and electric fencing. We would feel safe and secure in our house without any deterrents to miscreants whose unlawful activities invaded the lives of others.

As far as I knew the criminal had been caught and sent to jail and so our tranquil suburb was crime free!

How time have changed!



I was standing in our kitchen over this weekend looking out onto the street our home is situated on. I realised that I was peering through glass that was segmented into different small panes by a burglar guard. A few meters further on was a security gate with an expensive electric lock on it. From the security gate to the perimeter fence was a few meters of paved ground with only knee-high shrubs in the garden beds. The fence has spikes on the top of it and the electric gate has features that makes it difficult to lift it off its runners to gain unauthorised access to the property.
I looked to the other side of the road and saw the neighbours walled property - a wall more than 2 meters high - and then their house with its small squares of glass because of the the burglar guards on the windows. To get into their property you also go through an electrically locked gate. The doors are also (as are ours) secured by security gates which add another level of safety.

How times have changed!

We leave in a peaceful and quiet suburb of Pretoria - peaceful and quiet by today's standards but what a sharp contrast to what I was used to when I was growing up!

In my young days, crime was hardly ever heard of.
In my early adult years I knew people who knew someone who had been a victim of crime.
Now I not only know people who have themselves experienced various different types of crime, I myself and my family have been victims of it.

One of my colleagues had the experience last week of dropping his nephew at school and having to suddenly shield him and other children from a shooting that was taking place at the school. In this case, the victim died a short while later - before an ambulance could even get to him. The shooter had taken the life of his victim. He has killed 3 others previously.

The police eventually caught the perpetrator who will stand trial at some stage. I hope the justice system sees justice done!

Human Trafficking

We have been warned, leading up to the FIFA 2010 Soccer world cup, that children are at risk in South Africa and that children should not be allowed to go around in public places on their own.

I seems that events of this nature and scale provide lucrative platforms for insidious merchants to market their wares which include children and teenagers.

A typical mode of acquiring their 'marketable items' is to be in popular shopping centers watching all who come in and are wandering around.  They identify and monitor potential targets to ensure that they are not with anybody who is nearby.  When they strike the walk up to their prey with an injection concealed in a hand and bump lightly against the shoulder of their prey injecting the contents of the syringe as they do it.  A few short second is all it takes and the injected person collapses.  The hunter quickly comes to the aid of the unconscious person picking him or her up and shouting 'my child is ill and has to get to the hospital!'.  They rush out of the center carrying their prey and get into a car that is parked nearby.  The child or teenager is never seen again.

A young girl's price is said to be as high as R39,000.00.

I am disgusted by the actions of these and other people.  In today's fast moving, automated society where everyone sees to self with little regard for others particularly people not known to them, these crimes are easily perpetrated and executed knowing that there is little chance of being challenged or intercepted.  It is a harsh reminder that we do not really stand together and we hate to get involved with other's problems.  In a way I can understand that because our society often punishes well meaning people so everyone feels to not get involved.

It is also a poor reflection on human kind that such inhumane acts become an expected part of any great event such as these international sports events are.

I am glad there are organisations that are set up to monitor human trafficking and who work to prevent it from happening, but in today's high tech society I am sure that they only get to see a small percentage of what is really going on.

The radio today reported on another form of human trafficking.

Street beggars that are found at many intersections of the road of Johannesburg and Pretoria are hiring babies from irresponsible 'mothers' for the day.  They pay the mother a paltry R20.00 and they take the child, strapped onto their backs in the traditional way, and spend the whole day, in the sun, getting donations from motorists.  Drivers feel more compassionate to a person begging with a child and so they are more included to give and give larger amounts.  The beggar who hires the baby has no personal responsibility to the child.  If the child cries, even better, more sympathy; but the child gets nothing.  Babies end up being deformed, malnourished and ill with disease but are given no care.  They are returned to the 'mother' at the end of the day.

And the end of the day the beggar has benefited from higher donations; the mother has benefited from the hire fee; the baby has had no benefit at all and will most likely become another beggar or street child in later years due to the lack of care and attention and worthwhile social engagement.

This trafficking should be stopped and I am sure it can be prevented far easier than other forms of trafficking. Begging of this nature should be illegal particularly on busy street corners with an infant.

Struck by Lightning!

You gotta be careful!
Lightning can strike when you least expect it!

Lightning is the next Dean Koontz book I have started reading and it is promising to be just as enthralling as the previous novels of his that I have read.

I starts with a baby being born during a particularly violent electric storm.  The mother was experiencing difficulty so her doctor - a dunken, self pitying failure - was called to assist.  The doctor's ability to get to the hospital where he most likely would have ended up burying his mistake, was impeded by a mysterious guardian angel.
Baby was born, mother died and the thrilling mystery begins to take form....

I expect that this book, also available as an audio book and in handheld electronic format, to be a compelling read.  I am only a 10% into the book and I know there are a number of characters, some good, some very bad and sinister and others at the mercy of the badies.  The plot is not yet completely clear but that is what makes good reading - a keeness to find out about the plot and the way it unfolds....

Finished 'Intensity' - a Dean Koontz novel

Well, after many days of reading I have completed the Dean Koontz novel "Intensity".

I found it quite intriguing and I often wondered to what extent Mr Vess would go in his pursuit of satisfying his depraved senses.

If you want to read book that are really HORROR THRILLERS, Dean Koontz is the author to turn to.  There is nothing "normal" about his characters.  I found myself totally absorbed by some parts of the book willing the good character to hurry up and get a move on to free herself from the grips and bondage of her evil, bloodthirsty tormentor.  The actions of Mr Edgler Vess were always unpredictable.  His love for the macabre was experienced in so many different ways.

At the end of the book, Chyna managed to escape in spite of great obstacles and she even managed to free Ariel who had been imprisoned by the demonic Edgler.  After all the tension of the 24 hours covered by most of the book, there was relief that the bad guy did not win but disappointment as well because the story almost ended in an anti-climax.

I can imagine that this novel could be (might already be) a gripping movie.  It would be interesting to see how the various scenes would be depicted.

Satisfaction! Grrrr

Following on from yesterday's blog posting, I had the pleasure of noticing how stupid the 'Blue Light Brigade' can be.
The Blue Light Brigade is a term given to the politicians who travel the roads in big black cars fitted with blue strobe lights and the normal lights have also been modified to flash brightly as well.  The come cruising down the highways and byways of South Africa and expect the drivers that are in their way to take any measures to get out of the way so that they can get to their destination quickly - their time seems to be so much more valuable than the normal citizen's!

Last night, while traveling home along one of the highways between my place of employment and my house, I had covered about half the distance in traffic that was not too heavy.  I was in the inside lane and I noticed a Blue Light car coming up behind me.  I completed passing a large truck and I moved out of the inside lane.  The dearly beloved politician passed me and I moved in behind him again to pass other slower vehicles.

Some distance further on the Blue Light car had disappeared from sight and still had about 20 minutes of travel left.  As I neared the exit from the highway I needed to take I noticed a long stream of cars on the outside lane and I saw that I would be able to get past them before my exit so I proceeded to do so.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that one of the cars in the long queue was the politician!

I carried on past and pulled in front of the queue of cars, end a bit further on took the exit I needed to.  In my rear view mirror I saw that the Blue Light car was waiting in the queue to get into the exit - they were being slowed down by a large truck that was in front of the queue.

I took the exit and entered another highway and completed my trip off that highway without having seen the Blue Light car again.

Which all goes to prove the old adage, "More haste, less speed"!

Special People :(

Previous on KenRules mention was made of the amount of time we waste.  Commuting traffic is a time and way that much time is wasted.  I waste between 3 and 5 hours a day commuting from home to my place of employment!  There are many people in the same preidicament as I.  I look around me while inching forward on the 'freeways' and 'highways' I travel on and the sheer volume of cars caught in the same slow moving traffic would support my assertion.  Many of us WASTE TIME in traffic!


Then you get the people whose time is so valuable to them that they will contravene all kinds of road usage laws.  People who feel that they are so speciual that they do not need to comply with and be subject to the rules of the road.  People who are so special that they must be allowed to get to their destination faster than anyone else.
So they come speeding down the emergency lanes of the highways bearing scant regard to the consequenses of their actions, kicking up sand, stones and various other forms of debris that exist behing the yellow line that demarkates the 'no mans land' of the highway!
Why can't they, like most others, submit to the fact that the traffic is intense and slow moving and inch along eventually reahing their destination without jeapodizing the safety of other road users?  Eventual they get to a point in their speedy bypass where they will have to join the main flow again so they will have to push in thereby agravating and exacerbating the problem for everyone else!
In South Africa we have a 'Blue Light Brigade'.  I think it is something our politicians learned from when the US President came with his convoys to South Africa.  As he travelled around there would be a cavalcade of big black Jeeps with tinted windows and blue fashing lights in front, behind and on each side of the Presidential Limosine.  All road users where exepected to make way for the enormous procession so they would pull into the emergency lanes, climb pavements and roll down embankments to get out of the way for this doyen of the civilized world.
Our politicians saw how cool this was and so for the past years we have been subjected to this arogance on our roads as our 'public servants' travel with their 'blue light brigades' from venue to venue.

For behold, though shalt make way for this special person for he art far superior to thee and thou shalt be forced from the road if thou dost not acknowlege how superior he/she is.  Verily verily, I say anto thee (although though canst not hear it but thou art aware of the blue lights that are flashing impaiently) that failure to comply with our demands will result in a punishment that will exceed they wildest expectations for we will with impunity and without fear for the law - for we are above and beyond the law - roll open our electric tinted windows and hold forth our automatic fireams and aim them at the tyres of your vehicle and shoot with anticpation of the diruption danger and damage this will cause to thee and thy family as you travel innocently on the roads that we have provided yet failed to maintain!

Read for life.

Comparatively speaking, LIFE IS SHORT.
What do we spend most of our life doing?
Reading.

In one way or another our lives are involved in reading everyday and in many of the things we do.
Just look at the various ways we read - and this is not taking into consideration the work place or careers!

• We wake up in the morning and READ the time off our watch or alarm clock.
• We go have breakfast and we READ the labels on the cereal box
• We take the milk out the refrigerator and READ the expiry date
• READING the time lets us know how we are progressing in the day
• In the car we READ the dashboard and other instruments
• As we drive we READ road signs, adverts and banners along the road
• The newspapers are READ
• Our calendar or agenda for the day is READ
• We decide to see a movie and we READ what is showing
• We watch the movie and READ the pictures and listen to the words
• Going shopping and we READ the shop names we go to
• The product labels and prices of the items are READ as we seek what we are looking for.

There are very few activities in a day that we can complete without reading.  Sleep is one of them and thank heavens for that!

It is hard to imagine living without being able to read text, writing or books yet there are many people in the world who go through each day without a clue of how to READ.  I cannot image being in that situation.  The ability to read is something I have always taken for granted!
Yet there are people, even in some of the most advanced countries, that are illiterate!  I cannot even begin to imagine what they are missing!
Can you imagine not being able to pick up a paper and READ the news or stories it contains?  Or getting a letter and maybe recognising who it is from by the handwriting but not being able to read it?
Reading is a skill we should all be so very thankful for.
It enriches our lives, builds character, increases knowledge and understanding.  It opens the world to us.
Through reading we have ways to assist us in every aspect of lives.  It provides a way of addressing the innumerable challenges and problems that we face on a daily basis and, through the art of being able to write, provides a way in which we can touch and affect the lives of many others.
Where would we be today if it were not for the fact that from the earliest of times there have been people who have been able to read and to write.  People who have recorded their experiences, their joys and their frustrations.  People who have documented, sometimes in the finest and most intricate detail, their lives and their experiences so that we can benefit from this written word!

Wasted Time

Time is such a precious commodity.  Once it has passed it has gone forever and there is absolutely nothing you can do to retrieve it or relive it.
When you think about it, a lot of our life's time is wasted and then I wonder what can be done to prevent that from happening.  Many of our daily activities can be classified as wasted time...

• Watching TV
• Sitting in traffic
• Waiting for some event to start
• Sitting idly staring into space

It does not take too much effort and the list can be added to.  I do not categorise sleep as a waste of time.  We all know it is essential to each person to spend some time sleeping.  Failing to do this is counterproductive and can have far reaching and undesirable consequences.  Many books are written on this including Sound Sleep, Sound Mind: 7 Keys to Sleeping Through the Night.  We all know it is important!

What about the other time though?  Wasted time that cannot be justified as essential?

TRAVEL TIME
I spend about 4 hours of each day in traffic travelling to a from work.  It is essential time as it permits me to maintain my lifestyle and enjoy many other things but it is essentially "WASTED TIME"!
I can spend the time concentrating as much as I can on the activities pertaining to safely driving myself but when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic that is stop start, stop start, the only thing left to do is to

• Count the cars in front
• count the cars behind
• see how many there are of each make
• note number plates and patterns in the letters and numbers
• consider the acronyms that the letters of the numberplate can be
• look at the people inside the car and wonder
• What work they do
• Are they married
• what kind of people are they
• how much do they earn
• did they kiss their spouse and children goodbye
• are they in a company car
• See the surrounding country and buildings
• calculate the total cost of vehicles within your sight
• consider all the petroleum products being burned and the cost of it

Lets face it, it may be slightly entertaining but IT IS A BIG WASTE OF TIME!!

TIME IS MARCHING ON AND BEING WASTED!

If you could read, it would not be such a waste of time but, of course, you cannot read!  I see people reading the paper or a magazine, holding it to the steering wheel and glancing between the road and the traffic and what they are reading.  They are compromising their safety and all other road users!

I have seen people with bibles open on their steering wheel.  They must think that because it is the Bible they are reading, the Good Lord will guard and protect them so that they will get to work safely!  I am sure the Good Lord expects them to use common sense and will protect them after all precautions they take themselves!

So, what do we do?

We live is an age of amazing technological advancements and Audio Books are one of these technologies that can assist us.  Most cars these days, when fitted with sound equipment, have a CD player.  Audio books can be listened to during the long and tedious commuting we do.

Audio books can be

• entertaining
• educational
• motivational
• inspiring
• edifying
• character building
• funny

and can cover a wide variety of subjects and topics.

The problem I have with audio books is that you have to train yourself to listen to them and to HEAR what is being said.  I sometimes 'zone out' and do not hear or absorb anything that is going on around me.  The radio can be playing.  I am aware of it but do not really hear it.  My wife may be talking to me and I don't hear her either!

I also think it would be good to be able to listen to an audio book version of the current book you are reading.  It would provide a convenient way of getting through it and enjoy it.

Back to the Reading theme...

After moving away from the original theme it will most likely be a good idea to get back to reading and the joys of doing it.

John Grisham

I have had the pleasure of reading many of John Grisham's books.  For the most part his novels are interesting and absorbing.  His stories are obviously well researched.  While reading them I often find myself asking if things like this can really happen - I question of people can really be as he portrays them.   As much as I know it is fiction, I feel there is a lot of truth in the fiction and that makes it even more compelling to read!

The Brethren is a very good example of this.  It is centered around how crime can and is used to promote greed and allegiance to an organisation that is rotten from the top down.

Throughout his books I find myself eagerly reading and wanting the 'good guys' to be victorious.  I am disappointed

As good as the books may be, I found that after reading a few, some aspects of the plot were almost predictable.  The plot proceeds with considerable tension and is drawn out for the majority of the book only to come to a rather sudden stop in the last pages of the book.  It is almost like he realises that he could go on for ever but he needs to keep it to a certain number of pages so the end is rather rushed.

In spite of that, I did enjoy reading the books and would start a new story immediately on finishing the current one.

Law forms the basis of most of his novels I have read with Skipping Christmas being an exception.  Like a number of his other books, this was made into an amusing and light hearted movie as Christmas With the Kranks.

More on my Birthday

Being on the 8th of May my birthday is very close to Mother's Day.  Some years I even share the day with Mother's Day!  This year, of course, Mother's Day followed my birthday.

My mother has been living in Utah for the past few years.  I have two sisters that stay in Utah at Bountiful.  They have been there for a number of years already.  Mom had carried on living in Graaf-Reinett after my father passed away.

Although my Brother, Jason, would often be there during the day, I think she was essentially rather lonely.  Sadly, this all changed the weekend before Christmas a few years ago when she was brutally beaten and left unconscious in the house by some demonic miscreant.  My brother, who was to be going out of town for some work, felt he should pop in on his way out and came across Mom in a pool of blood on the floor.  For Mom, this was fortunate and months of healing, car and worry ensued.  Following the trauma of the experience for Mom, the majority of the family felt it would be best for her to go and stay with my sisters in Utah; far away from the incident and everything that could remind her of it.  It was a good decision and she seems to be doing well in her new home.

For me, Mother's Day is one of the occasions that I make a point of speaking to Mom.  This year I had intended calling her at about 20h00 South African time but she beat me to it by calling at about 18h00.  The line was not the best but Mom's voice has also become rather hoarse following her horrific experience.  That, coupled with my not being able to hear too well over the phone, made for a rather stressful period of talking with her and not being able to understand much of what she was saying.

I often feel guilty about not being in contact with my mother as often as I should.  This, coupled with some of the things she has said over that traumatic period rest heavily on my mind even though I know that many of the things that were said by her during that period were 'not really her' speaking.  There is the saying that 'There is never smoke without a fire'.

A year in a day

I had my birthday on the 8th. It was a very quiet day.  No parties, few people, few gifts.  Pretty much the way I like it.  I got to see my grandson, Clarke.  He is almost a year old and such a bundle of pleasure and joy.  At his young age he is already learning to assert himself.  He is so cute to watch as he experiments with various items and things.  He loves to test his power and strength and it is awesome to watch him as he tries to crush things in his hands.  He exerts himself to the extent that his arms shake and tremor as he focuses all his strength on his fingers and hand in his efforts to crush the item.

One of the things I hate about birthdays is the questions that get asked.

• "How does it feel to be a year older?"
• "What did you get for your birthday?"
• "You look so good for your age!"

If you think of it, a birthday is just another day!  Why would you feel any different on your birthday than you did on the day before?  It is just the completion of another year which has been lived one day at a time!

I was given a copy of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit as a present.  It is a great version of Windows and has the Windows Media Center which I like to use.  I have a vast collection of music and some videos.  My PC has a tuner card as well.  Windows Media Center allows me to be able to have easy access to all of this media.

A 64 bit version of Windows 7 is a bit of an overkill as my computer only has 2 GBytes of RAM (DDR2 800).  I am not too impressed with WMC's ability to catalog and manage large libraries but, once done, it gives easy access to it all - if you know how to operate the remote control!

I hope that by using it I will be able to get some good benefits from the HD capabilities of my new 23 inch Samsung monitor.

Another benefit I will get from the Windows OS on the PC is managing my large collection of eBooks, the most of which are in MobiPocket format.  It will make transferring them to my Nokia E71 easier and Kaleela will have access to them as well on her Kindle she recently purchased.

Other books I have read

Back to my ramblings about books that I have read....

I was saying that I have enjoyed reading from a young age.  One of my friends at school, Geof Whitehead, was an avid reader of westerns and Dick Francis novels.  If I remember correctly, he could read very fast and would finish books in a very short time.  I envied him at the time.  His ability to rush through a book from begining to end was amazing.  He enjoyed horses a lot too and so Dick Francis was a favourite author of his.

Although I anvied Geof's speed reading, I have learned to enjoy my slower pace as I feel I spend more time in the book.  I feel I am more able to appreciate and enjoy the experiences the characters of the books are having.

I went through the 'older childrens' books like

• The Hardy Boys
• Books by R. Crompton - I think they were about a boy called William and the pranks he got up to - More William is an example of this.
• Biggles Books set in the 2nd World War. About flying in Spitfires. By Captain W E Johns

I hated the secret seven and purposely stayed away from anything by Enid Blyton!














For relaxation I enjoyed reading the TIN TIN and Asterix picture stories and risked becoming seriously under-developed and having my growth stunted by reading them!  My parents felt that they did not require any intelligence to read and left nothing to the imagination!  I would get a thorough scolding if found reading them and wo unto me if I was doing it while I should have been more diligently devoted to homework or other more worthwhile activities like mowing the lawns!

Life as a teenage school going boy was at times quite challenging.  While encouraged to read good books I was also counciled to make constructive use of my time and not to lounge around doing nothing worthwhile all day.

After I have completed the books mentioned above I moved onto fiction from the Adult's section of the public library.  The place where the 'more complicated' books were.  This was great fun!  I read passionately from the following authors and many more...

• Perry Mason Earl Stanley Gardiner
• Arthur Hailey
• Frederick Forsyth Search Amazon.com for frederick forsyth
• Douglas Reeman Search Amazon.com for douglas reeman

Yes I love reading and I am fortunate enough to be able to do it almost anywhere or at any time.  I don't have a Kindle yet but I am lucky enough to have a very nice smart phone.  A Nokia E71 and for those of you who know about these things, the Nokia E71 can have MobiPocket Reader running on it which opens a whole world of books that can be read on it.

My daughter, Kaleela, has just bought herself an Amazon Kindle and she is so happy with it.  It is not the Kindle DX as shown in the picture above but it is still a Kindle and makes it possible to read many books.  One of the great things about it is that the books I read on my phone can be read on the Kindle as well.  One day, when I am rich and famous, I will get an Amazon Kindle DX and put all my books on it and I will be able to benefit from

• the larger screen,
• the clearer view of the text,
• the ability to increase the font size to compensate for failing eyesight
• the reader function that will read the book for me
• the easy menus
• the convenience of a dedicated reading device
• a much larger selection of books through Amazon

For a person who likes to read and is concerned about the natural environment and all the trees that are disappearing from the depleted forests, the Amazon Kindle is the way to go!
Some people would say, "But  what about the Apple iPad or this or that other make?".  My response is that any device that gives the benefit of easy reading is good and an asset to the person.
I know that there are many who say that the plastic, components and batteries of these devices are far more harmful to the environment than the trees that are killed to print books!  Lets all be sensible and responsible and not embrace new technologies because of antiquated thinking, attitudes and ideas.  Where would we be if people like Martin Luther, John Wesley and others had not persisted in following their ideals?  Still walking around in rough, dirty scratchy clothes dragging our women and children behind by the hair?

I am so glad I can read and that so many others can too!
I give thanks to the Lord that there are authors, artists and producers who improve our quality of life by their contributions.

Whatever the way it is done, reading is GOOD.  It can be from books, from media or from the latest electronic devices but reading is good.  Fiction, no fiction, factual, fairy tales, poems or prose, there is something for everyone and everyone should have access to it!

One of the things I like to do.

There are many things in my vast repetoir of experience.  One that I am currently getting a lot of pleasure from is reading.  I love reading!
Don't get me wrong; I do not read at a fast pace completing volumes per day and I can't say that I focus on any one particular author but I do enjoy a good book!

My beginnings
I started enjoying reading in my early teens - I think!

I remember spending much time reading during my high school years.  While most of the other boys at school were fooling around frying ants under magnifying glasses, playing with electronics, pyrotechnics and seeing how girls worked, I was reading.  I think it contributed to the slow development of social skills but it gave me a vast appreciation of fiction.

During these years I found that I could live inside the book I was reading.  I could enjoy the experiences of the characters in the books.  I could feel the sorrow and dissappointment they had as well.  There were even times that I shed a tear or two in particularly moving passages.

Once again, you should not think of me as a softy who sought out love stories and that type of literature; no, I was more drawn to action and to books that moved well.  Books that grasped my interest would result in me reading during every spare minute even 'sacrificing' school home work for reading.

At school, while the class was studying literature, I would be reading my books lost in the escapades of the fictional characters and whirled away in the adventures of heros and heroines!  Sometimes the teacher would catch me out but that was rare.  There was a row of us.  We sat at the back of the class.  We would have our novels inside our set school works and we would enjoy ourselves.  Those lessons went quickly - all too quickly and really just resulted in an increased eagerness to find a place to continue the reading.  Most of the other guys would be reading cowboy books like those by Louie La'Amor, J T Edson or others of the many western authors that were prevalent in the early seventies.

My interests at that time were more drawn to Arthur Haily, Douglas Reeman, and Wilbur Smith.

Wilbur Smith was a particularly exciting read.  He wrote of Southern Africa and the type of things that were from the region and its cultures.  I loved reading of the characters that were indiginous to the region and had fantastic capabilities of stamina.  They would be able to run day and night, never stoping but intent on being reliable and getting their task done.
Wilbur Smith also introduced me to a darker side of the African Continent as he related stories of tribal healers, 'doctors' and witches.  It was intensely interesting!
In some of his books, the savagery of the characters and the deep intensity of their acts thrilled me at the same time as bringing horror.  Born with these descriptions were amazing dreams and fantasies that to this day provide a sense of wonder and entertainment.

Douglas Reeman produced incredible novels about the seas, the ships that sailed in them and the men and women that lived on board them.  While reading his books it was possible to feel the excitement they had as they were engaged in action; the frustration and loneliness they were subject to in vast expanses of open water.  The submarine crew member's fear and anticipation as they waited submerged beneath the deep dark waters became tangable to me even though I was curled up in my bed or on a lounge chair in the stiffling muggy heat of Durban on the Natal coast!

Reading is so much fun.  It is satisfying, relaxing and stimulating at the same time.

More to follow soon!

To start....

Yes to start. Blogging is a good idea - i guess but wht would I want my life exposed to the entire internet public?
Why would every Tom, Dick and Harry (and i guess Sally, Sue and Jane) want to read about me?
Well I soppose not many if at all! So with that in mind I may as well start blogging for the absolutely meaningless escape it provides from all the other intensities and demands of human living.

My Life - a short glimpse.
I was born in the small South African town of Boksburg on May 8 1959. It must have been a good year!
A short while later my parents deemed it prudent to immigrate to the welcoming shores of Australia where we lived for 6 months in Sydney and then moved over to Tasmania to live in a little coastal area called Sulpher Creek between Launceston and Burnie on the north coast of the island.
We lived there for about 6 years at which time we returned by ship to South Africa. I had the auspicious priviledge of turning 8 years old on the trip! After staying in Durban for a few months we moved up to Modderfontein and later Johannesburg. At the age of 12 or 13 we moved back down to Durban where we stayed in Hillary for the remainder of my Primary School days. After completing high school at Queensburgh Boys High I did my national service in the South African Air Force where I worked as a chef. Two years later I started a 2 year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Following that I started work with computers and have been employed in that field ever since.
I am currently working at Standard Bank as an Integration Specialist.

So, that brings to an end my first blog. To all the potential readers out there who may come upon this and read it for long enough to get to this point, congratulations! You have completed something I did not expect you to!
To all of you who did not find this - don't worry, you have not missed out on anything! I am sure you have had far more important and pertinent things to do so good luck, carry on, don't dither or tarry - you may miss great opportunities in doing that.